Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro Ltd, has earmarked all economic benefits from 34 per cent of his shares in Wipro worth about $7.5 billion, or Rs 52,750 crore, and held by entities controlled by him, for philanthropy purposes.

Advertising

According to an exchange filing by Wipro, with this, the corpus of funds under the family’s endowment trust, which supports the Azim Premji Foundation’s philanthropic activities, has risen to nearly $ 21 billion (Rs 1,45,000 crore). This involves 67 per cent of economic ownership of Wipro Ltd. “Activities of the foundation are expected to scale up significantly over the next few years,” the statement said, adding that the team driving the field of work in education for the foundation is expected to grow significantly.

Azim Premji family holds 74.30 per cent stake in Wipro which has a market capitalisation of Rs 1,55,523 crore.

The Foundation’s field strategy focuses on creating and scaling up a network of institutions at the district and state levels to contribute to improvement in the school education system on a continued and sustained basis, it said.

Advertising

“As part of its overall strategy, the Foundation has also set up the Azim Premji University in Bangalore. The University has been established with a clear social purpose of developing outstanding professionals in the domains of education and related areas of human development for the entire country,” it said.

The University does this by offering various degrees and other educational programmes, and conducting research in various fields of human development and social importance.

It said the Foundation’s extensive field work in education has been in some of the most disadvantaged parts of India, to help contribute to the improvement of quality and equity of the public (government) schooling system. All this work has been in close partnership with various State Governments. Currently this field work is spread across Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Puducherry, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh, along with some work in the north-eastern states of India.